Clinton to Wealthy:
Flee the Country if Arrest Looms

Updated Jan. 31, 2001 12:01 a.m. ET

By Griffin Bell. Mr. Bell was U.S. attorney general from 1977-79.

T he most charitable interpretation of President Clinton's decision to pardon Marc Rich, who fled the U.S. in 1983 to avoid prosecution for tax evasion, is that he was hoodwinked by a clever and well-connected lawyer they shared. But the pardon may not simply be another example of President Clinton's picaresque inability to tell right from wrong. To many, it looks like...